A Lily for All Nations Catholics celebrate Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, who will soon become the first Native American saint by Angela Cave
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CNS photo/Nancy Phelan Wiechec — LILY: iStock Photo
iracles attributed to her intercession abound: A boy was cured of a 65-percent hearing loss. A man defied doctors by walking after a spinal cord injury. An ironworker fell through two floors — losing 16 vertebrae and fracturing his ribs and skull — and lived and walked to tell the tale. Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, the 17th-century Mohawk maiden who, despite resistance, devoted her life to the Gospel, is credited with answering countless prayers. Recently, one story — that of a child saved from a fatal flesh-eating disease — was deemed a miracle by the Vatican, paving the way for Blessed Kateri’s long-awaited canonization next month in Rome. As the Oct. 21 date of her canonization draws near, Catholics across North America have been celebrating and planning pilgrimages to witness history in the making — the first Native American saint. Perhaps none are more excited and grateful than the approximately 600,000 Native Americans, representing more than 300 tribes and nations, who belong to the Catholic Church. KATERI’S GIFT OF FAITH Blessed Kateri, known as the “Lily of the Mohawks,” was born to a Christian Algonquin mother and a Mohawk chief father in 1656 in a Mohawk village called Ossernenon (modern-day Auriesville, N.Y.). When she was 4, a smallpox epidemic took her parents’ lives and left her with impaired vision, poor health and pockmarks. Raised by her uncle in Caughnawaga, near present-day Fonda, N.Y., Kateri was inspired by Jesuit missionaries to study Catholicism in private at age 18. She continued her domestic duties, but resisted offers of marriage, reportedly to her uncle’s displeasure. After her baptism two years later, her family and village ostracized, ridiculed, slandered and threatened her. In 1677, Kateri fled to St. Francis Xavier de Sault, a Jesuit mission in Quebec, with a note from the Jesuit priest in her village that read, “I send you a treasure. Guard it well.” There, among Christian friends, she led a life of prayer, love for the Eucharist, devotion to chastity and intense penitential practices. She taught prayers to children, made wooden
crosses and placed them throughout the woods, worked with the sick and elderly, and attended Mass daily. In 1679, she took a vow of perpetual virginity — the next best thing after starting her own religious order, a request she and her associates had been denied. After suffering from years of ill health, Kateri died at the age of 24 after uttering her last words, “Jesus, I love you.” Her remains are now in Kahnawake, near Montreal. It is reported that Kateri’s smallpox scars vanished after her death and that she appeared to her friend Anastasia, among others, with a message: “The cross was the glory of my life and the glory of my death, and I want you to make it yours.” Kateri’s cause for canonization opened in 1932, after more than a century of beseeching from Catholics devoted to her. Pope Pius XII declared her venerable in 1943, and Pope John Paul II beatified her on June 22, 1980. Finally, Pope Benedict XVI signed the decree necessary for her canonization last December. “It is a vision that is fulfilled on the part of many Native American Catholics, those who have come to know and love her,” said Sister Kateri Mitchell, a Sister of St. Anne and executive director of the Tekakwitha Conference, an organization that promotes evangelization among indigenous Catholics in the United States and Canada. “It’s definitely going to reaffirm and reawaken in many of our people the gift of faith. [Kateri’s] spirit will live on in the lives of our people in a much deeper and more profound way.” Bringing stories of hope inspired by the canonization, more than 800 people gathered for the 73rd annual Tekakwitha Conference in and around Blessed Kateri’s upstate New York birthplace this past July. The five-day event was filled with sounds of traditional Native American instruments and vocal chants, the smells of burning sweet grass, and the sights of dancing, traditional dress and harvest vegetables intertwining with Catholic rituals. Blessed Kateri’s canonization comes as a source of affirmation for a group of faithful that comprises tiny portions of both the Catholic Church and the U.S. population — and, SEPTEMBER 2012
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